


Three Blondes

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blondes, Dating, F/M, Young Mycroft, uni Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 11:56:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/418625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft's technically only dating one of them. And it's casual. But she does have two younger sisters along on a long car ride, and they've stopped off, and...he's still Mycroft.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Blondes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Arbitrary Aubergine.

Mycroft smiled, taking one girl’s hand fondly. “Be kind. She’s on vacation as well.”

“Then why is she reading the newspaper?” another girl pressed, kicking the chair her sister was in and getting a slap in return, and laughing.

“Emma.”

“ _She_ hit _me!”_

Mycroft Holmes was holding the hand of Jenny Sanders, a sandy-haired blonde who had followed Pete home one evening. She had recognized him, having heard of him through an uncle who had been a visiting lecturer. Mycroft was never surprised anymore when people knew who he was. He had put a great deal of effort into making connections, and now his network was continuing to grow even when his attention was focused elsewhere.

On this visit, Jenny had been driving her two sisters across country to meet their father’s yacht. Cambridge hadn’t exactly been on the route, but time didn’t seem much of a priority. Emma and Kate were brighter, happier versions of Jenny, blonder, sillier, and with the confidence of wealth and privilege to back their good skin and long hair. They weren’t stupid, but being seen to do anything as serious as reading a newspaper was definitely not going to pass unchallenged. As the youngest, Kate was expected to stay shallow at least as long as her elders thought that they had. Jenny would occasionally look across a paper’s headlines, if Mycroft left it lying next to her breakfast. Emma routinely binned every paper not actively being read, on principle. What the principle was, exactly, had yet to be discovered.

“I’m reading it,” Kate insisted.

Emma, nearly as tall as Mycroft, set three sweating, ice-laden glasses down on the table, passing one each to Mycroft and Jenny. “Are you sure you don’t want a drink, Kate?”

“No,” from behind the paper.

Mycroft smiled, letting Jenny swing his hand between their chairs. “What are you reading about?” he asked.

“They’re raising £3.2 million for new laboratory equipment -” Kate began.

“Since when are you interested in chemistry?” Emma demanded, still laughing.

“The princes going to be at the announcement,” Kate said.

“A little young for you, aren’t they?” Emma asked.

“We’ll be on the yacht by then anyway,” Kate said calmly. “Anyway, I’m a pacifist.”

“Since when? Shut up!” Emma burst out, kicking her sister’s chair again.

As the bickering continued, Jenny squeezed Mycroft’s hand. He glanced over. “They’re always going to be like this, aren’t they?” she said quietly, her eyes bright.

“Yes,” he assured her. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with them. It could be worse - they could be boys.”

“Yuck!” Emma said, picking up on the last few words. “Did you just call us boys?”

“I said you would be far worse if you were,” Mycroft repeated, his face calm, knowing how to wind up the middle sister.

“Worse? You think we’re bad? She’s only reading the paper to try to impress you!”

“I read the paper every day, at home,” Kate insisted. She still hadn’t set it down.

“Which sections?” Mycroft asked.

“The TV reviews!” Emma cut in.

“And if I didn’t, you wouldn’t’ve known there was a new series of _Chef!_ on.”

“You’re interested in cookery?” Mycroft was surprised.

“No, the comedy! Lenny Henry!”

“Ah.” His eyes drifted back to Jenny. “I’ve not seen it.” 

“I know you haven’t been revising,” Jenny teased, twisting his fingers. “So what have you been doing with your evenings?”

“Research,” he said smoothly. “Next term will be busy, as I’ll be spending half of it in London.”

“Shall I be seeing more of you then?” she grinned.

“It depends where you look.”

“Emma, there’s a crossword here, if you want it,” Kate said suddenly.

Jenny let her head fall back against her chair, sighing theatrically. “We weren’t anywhere near each other,” she announced.

“Totally safe to come out, Katie. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”

“No, I’m _fine,_ ” Kate insisted. “I had a soda in the car, remember?”

“Well, at least try mine.”

“I’m not thirsty!”

“Dear Lord, it’s a good thing I was available,” Mycroft interrupted. They all fell silent whenever he spoke. It was possibly a bit cruel to use this, but it amused him. “If the three of you had to drive across by yourselves, there might have been a murder in the family.”

Emma laughed, which was a mark of her infatuation. He knew the bickering was petty and spiteless, more to establish a pecking order for his attention. Jenny was complacent, as the eldest, thinking her younger siblings far too naive for him. Emma only knew one way to seek attention as yet, and that was by being the loudest. But Kate was by far the more interesting. She did seem to be reading the paper, and hadn’t laid eyes on him, to his knowledge, since they had sat down. She didn’t have any kind of chance at actually playing hard to get, but he appreciated the attempt as the most novel.

“Where will you be spending your summer?” Mycroft asked, leaving the question open to all of them.

“We’ll be on the boat with Daddy,” Emma said, stroking a finger down the side of her glass, and licking the water off of it. “As long as we’re within reach of the shore, he isn’t all that concerned about where we go. I’m hoping we’ll get to Portugal this time.”

“Thought you wanted south of France,” Kate said.

“That was me,” Jenny corrected calmly. Mycroft could feel the tension in her hand, however, and the way she didn’t look at him.

“I understood you weren’t joining them,” he said.

“Not for the first two weeks,” she admitted, turning away briefly before glancing at him.

He would disappoint her. She hoped he would give her a bit of encouragement, a plan, some intent. She wanted a decision that he wished to see her, something she could pretend was a promise of exclusivity. There had been no hint of it before, on either side. He had made no promises, implied none, and accepted none. To do so would be folly. She was a rich girl with a good family, no trace of shame nor threat of future embarrassment. She was solid, sensible enough to avoid scandal but not so dull as to go unnoticed. Ambitious, intelligent, correct, reliable, and of only momentary interest to him. 

The most important thing, though, was that she hadn’t assumed, but she had asked. She wasn’t so attached to him, then, that she would cry. If she were, she would have tried to manipulate his choice, rather than leaving the question open like this. He appreciated the respect this showed, and it deserved his respect in turn.

“I’ve a friend, near Cannes. His family have a place there. I believe they’ve already gone across for the summer. If you’d like a destination to use as encouragement, say the word.”

She smiled again. It wasn’t sad, but it lacked the sly promise from earlier. She kept hold of his hand, though. “Consider it said.”

  



End file.
